All over the world, diverse groups use arguments based on anti-rights interpretations of religion, culture and tradition to justify violence and discrimination. This publication from AWID highlights agreements that affirm the universal and interconnected nature of human rights. It can be used by human rights advocates to challenge state and non-state actors attempting to block the development, progress and protection of laws at all levels.

11th February 2015, BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indonesian officials have dropped a plan to require female students to pass virginity tests in order to graduate from high school and apologised after sparking a public outcry, human rights campaigners said.

Sexualised and gender-based violence in Iraq, highlighted in recent weeks in relation to ISIS atrocities, has been at the heart of sectarian and authoritarian politics and developments since 2003. How can we talk about it and mobilise against it?

It has never been more imperative to take action toward ending gender-based violence and militarism. From the terrorism of the likes of ISIS and Boko Haram, to the threats of Western-led imperialism, down to personal lives marred by cultures of masculinist violence, women all over the world face insecurity owing to patriarchal and militaristic violence.

The Association of Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWS) would like to express its solidarity with the people of Iraq who have suffered from dictatorship, economic sanctions, an invasion and occupation, years of militarization, and a new authoritarian government. The most recent suffering by Iraqis, caused by Islamic State (IS) forces, is so far mainly affecting religious minorities.

GENEVA (19 May 2014) – A group of UN human rights experts Monday expressed alarm after Meriam Ibrahim, a Christian woman pregnant with her second child, was sentenced to death and 100 lashes for marrying a Christian man and refusing to renounce her faith. Her trial did not comply with basic fair trial and due process guarantees, said the experts.

SIHA STATEMENT, 15 MAY 2014, KHARTOUM: In a shocking decision that the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) strongly condemns, Meriam Ibrahim, the 27-year-old pregnant Sudanese women charged with apostasy and adultery, was given a sentence today of 100 lashings and execution by hanging at the Haj Yousif Court Complex in Khartoum. In explaining the sentence, the deciding judge, Abbas Mohammed Al-Khalifa, commented to the defendant, whom SIHA has been publically and confidentially advocating for since February, that, ‘We gave you three days to recant but you insist on not returning to Islam. I sentence you to be hanged to death.’ In a show of great bravery given that the charge of apostasy, which carries the death penalty, hinges on Meriam’s claim that she is in fact a Christian, Meriam responded to the judge, ‘I am a Christian and never committed apostasy.’

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), the Violence is Not our Culture Campaign (VNC), and the Women Living under Muslim Laws international solidarity network (WLUML) strongly condemn the killing of Indian writer and activist Sushmita Banerjee outside her home in Paktika Province, Afghanistan.